HAVE YOU HAD ANY ELECTION MATERIAL?

John brought up an interesting point on Munguin's last article, and I thought that it really needed a better airing than at the bottom of a day-old story.

He wrote: You may recall that I mentioned a leaflet from a local Labour candidate which made no mention whatsoever of Labour's proposal of a tax-rise of 1p across all tax bands and I wondered if this was a 'one-off' omission by the local candidate or whether it was wide-spread by all candidates? Perhaps some of your readers might have received similar leaflets? 

I think that it would be an interesting exercise for readers who have received any party literature to share any apparent inaccuracies or glaring omissions in them, so putting up taxes in the case of Labour, or the reduction in public services that will be the inevitable result of reducing taxes in the cases of the Tories... the fact that the Tories have more or less wiped their toxic name off everything and replaced it with Ruth Davidson.

Have the Liberals or UKIP put out something that is economical with the truth... and does anyone care? 

This election, overshadowed as it is by Cameron's ridiculous and undemocratic decision to run an EU referendum campaign concurrently,  is mainly a contest for second place between two partners in the last referendum Better Together or Project Fear coalition, but let's not forget that the Greens and the SNP are sending out leaflets too. Are there errors or omissions in them?

Are  errors down to purely local decisions made by the candidate and his or her agent or are they widespread. In other words is there a "don't talk about the tax rises" type policy from head office, or is candidate Jock McBloggs leaving out things he's not comfortable with? 

(Remember, of course, that in a  doorstep leaflet you can't include the whole party manifesto!)

Oh, and  is anyone getting leaflets from RISE?

So if you get anything through your door (and you are minded to do this), please let us know.

**********

John raised another interesting point. 

When Scottish Labour proposed their tax increase policy across the board, they very reasonably decided that those earning under £20,000 should be given a rebate. 

(The inadequacies of the system currently devolved does not allow for a change in tax free allowance, the bands, nor any kind of rebate. The  questionably legal rebate proposed by SLAB  would have had to be managed by local authorities at considerable cost and a great deal of prying!) 

However, when Labour discovered that the UK tax free allowance was being raised by George Osborne to £11,000, it decided to drop the somewhat clumsy rebate proposals. This means that those earning over £11,000 will not be liable to pay the increase in taxes that Labour wants to introduce.

John,  and now Munguin, wonder why SLAB's website appears to not mention this. 

Any ideas?

************

Niko highlighted another totally separate but every bit as important point in the same Munguin article. This Guardian piece looks at how the DWP are treating people who are dependent on Tax Credits becasue they are not in full time work (including those who are on zero hour contracts, which sometimes are 40 hours or more on occasions). 

The system is operating in trial areas at the moment (something which seems inherently wrong to me in any case. All areas of "our united kingdom", as Dodgy Dave would have it, are, or should be, subject to the same terms and conditions where matters of UK-wide government policy still holds). However, it is, in the future, to be rolled out across these islands.

It's another way of smacking down the people who aren't lucky enough to have a full time solid job. They, in many cases, are the REAL strivers in the UK. The people who often get up at silly o'clock to do horrible unrewarding jobs in bad conditions, and with no security at all.  Compare them to the fat cat bankers, politicians and those who have fallen into cushie numbers because of their connections.

What a wonderful country this is if you got to a good school at £50,000+ a year, and have a daddy who can get you into Oxford no matter how thick you are, then have a word... and get you a nice little number with one of his friends.

If not, not so great!

OH DEAR, SIMON

That's a bit over the top, isn't it?

Not to mention that it's probably illegal!

THE "DEAR PEREGRIN" LETTERS

If this weren't so funny it would be pathetic.

Dear Peregrin,

I remember so well the day my first son was born - and in that moment, when you become a parent, absolutely everything changes.

Everything you do is for your children.

You've got this huge responsibility not just to love them, but to provide for them throughout their life. (Throughout their life, eh? They not going to grow into hard-working families up and down the country?)

And you want to know that even after you're gone, you can still provide for them. (I thought that the Tory motto was that people should stand on their own two feet and not depend on others to look after them even when they were dead?)

Because there is no more important kind of security than knowing your family is going to be OK financially. (Aye, all these people you've put in the food bank and on short term, or zero hour contracts, or minimum wage, or IDS's prison camps, know that kind of security Dave)

And that is why the next Conservative Government will take the family home out of inheritance tax. (That will be a comfort to Scottish families working in Tesco  and claiming social security to pay the rent.)

That home you have worked and saved for belongs to you and your family - you should be able to pass it on to your children. (Except of course, if you inherited it yourself. Did you work hard and save for your homes, Dave?)

And with the Conservatives, you'll be able to pass on up to £1 million per married couple completely tax-free - giving more security to families across the country. (That must be a huge relief, all these people with million pound homes knowing that their poor children won't have to struggle to get a council house, just because daddy had to pay nasty inheritance tax on his mansion.)

This is part of our plan to build a Britain where those who work hard and do the right thing get rewarded for their efforts. (Has it occurred to you that there are millions of people in Britain who work hard, REALLY hard, and don't have enough money to feed their kids never mind leave them a million pound house?)

And today, with more people in work, more people owning homes, more people running businesses, more people doing apprenticeships - we can see that we are getting there. (The view from the windows of Chipping Norton mansions must be very different from how it is everywhere else. How very lucky you are, Dave?)

So let's stick to the plan and see this through. (Well, yes, you have kids to leave all your homes to, so I suppose it's of interest to you and your cabinet of millionaires.)

Thank you. (You may well say that Dave. It is you who stands to benefit.)

TRUST RATINGS...

* Do you trust ALEX SALMOND, First Minister, to stand up for Scotland's interests?

Yes: 55%
No: 37%
Don't know: 9%
Net trust rating: +18

* Do you trust NICOLA STURGEON, Deputy First Minister, to stand up for Scotland's interests?

Yes: 54%
No: 33%
Don't know: 13%
Net trust rating: +21

* Do you trust JOHANN LAMONT, leader of Scottish Labour, to stand up for Scotland's interests?

Yes: 37%
No: 42%
Don't know: 22%
Net trust rating: -5

* Do you trust RUTH DAVIDSON, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, to stand up for Scotland's interests?

Yes: 31%
No: 51%
Don't know: 18%
Net trust rating: -20

* Do you trust WILLIE RENNIE, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, to stand up for Scotland's interests?

Yes: 23%
No: 51%
Don't know: 26%
Net trust rating: -28

* Do you trust PATRICK HARVIE, leader of the Scottish Green Party, to stand up for Scotland's interests?

Yes: 36%
No: 37%
Don't know: 27%
Net trust rating: -1

* Do you trust DAVID CAMERON, Prime Minister, to stand up for Scotland's interests?

Yes: 24%
No: 65%
Don't know: 11%
Net trust rating: -41

* Do you trust NICK CLEGG, Deputy Prime Minister, to stand up for Scotland's interests?

Yes: 13%
No: 71%
Don't know: 16%
Net trust rating: -58

* Do you trust ED MILIBAND, leader of the Labour Party, to stand up for Scotland's interests?

Yes: 23%
No: 61%
Don't know: 16%
Net trust rating: -38

ELECTION RATINGS

* If a Scottish Parliamentary election was held tomorrow, who would you vote for with your constituency vote?

SNP: 42%
Labour: 27%
Conservative: 15%
Liberal Democrat: 5%
UKIP: 5%
Other: 5%

* And who would you vote for with your regional vote?

SNP: 37%
Labour: 27%
Conservative: 16%
Liberal Democrat: 5%
Greens: 9%
UKIP: 4%
Other: 1%

* If a UK Parliamentary election was held tomorrow, who would you vote for?

SNP: 34%
Labour: 32%
Conservative: 18%
Liberal Democrat: 5%
UKIP: 6%
Other: 5%

Note: The poll was conducted from 29 September to 1 October,among 1,049 adults resident in Scotland aged 16+. All the results were weightedby age, sex, household tenure, country of birth and socio-economic group.Respondents who voted in the 2011 Holyrood election and/or 2014 Europeanelections were weighted back to the actual election results. UK voting intention was weighted to reflect the 2010 Westminster election rather than 2011.

IDENTITY CARDS REBORN WITH A NEW NAME

Less than a year after dismantling the previous government’s plans for an “identity card” scheme, the coalition has decided to introduce an “identity assurance” scheme, which from what I can make out still involves a “card”. So that will be an “identity assurance card” instead of an “identity card”.

A prototype will be in use within months and will be used to reliably identify the users of government web sites, although just how reliably is the question.

Currently Visa (the credit card system preferred by the government, and the only one valid for the purchase of Olympic tickets) has been involved in trials with its customers, where they can log into government websites using their credit cards.

I’m not certain which is more dangerous: my credit card details being known by the government, or my use of government internet sites being known by my bank. But something even more worrying is that Francis Maude appears to be in charge of the project, which almost certainly dooms it to failure.

He reckons that the proposed system will make it more difficult for fraudsters to dupe the benefit and tax systems. (I’m not sure how some of his colleagues will feel about that, but perhaps they could find a way of ensuring that Noble Lords have a card as soon as possible, as they seem to be fiddling on a grand scale, according to one of their number.)

The use of the internet for the delivery of government services is not an unreasonable idea. Of course it will save a lot of money. Offices all over the country where people used to be able to go to talk about their business on a one to one basis have long since closed, or become call centres where people can at least talk to another human being about their problems, albeit not face to face. How much cheaper would it be to sack half of these staff and replace them with an online service?

Who cares about quality of service?

Another worry about this is that, of course, there are still people who have no idea how to use a computer, most of them over 65, and there are very many who have no access to a computer.

Use of public computers for personal transactions, with identity cards (sorry identity assurance cards, by people who are not “net savvy” will create far more security problems than use of the cards may eliminate.

Sometimes you have to wonder why they bothered changing governments in England. (I say that because our representation didn’t change at all, except that SNP and Liberal by-election wins went back to Labour!)

I trust that these cards will at least be free, and the invasion of our privacy won't, as proposed by the last lot of incompetents, cost us £40-£60.

''It is not going to be a question of us propping up (another party) but of us insisting on the changes only we advocate'' : Nick Clegg!

Before the General Election in May the Liberals were recording voting intentions in the polls of around 30%. On occasions they were above on occasions below, but they frequently came close second behind the Tories and above the Labour Party.

Most recently they have flat lined at 9% (with an historic low in Wales of 6%).

I suppose we all knew that Nick Clegg was a kind of right-wing Liberal, with a deal in common with David Cameron, extremely rich parents, very good public school, then Oxford, as a right.

But I always had the impression that, even if I didn’t agree with all that he said, his views had been carefully thought out by a razor sharp mind, unlike David Cameron who seemed to have very little of substance to offer in a rather woolly mind, minimal intellect and no real political grounding. Cameron was a Tory because that was what rich boys who went to Eton and Oxford were. Because he had connections with the palace it seemed reasonable that he would go into parliament (with a little push from said palace) and would end up in Cabinet and possibly be prime minister. Clegg, from a similar background, having already worked in both Brussels and Washington and being fluent in several languages ... had though his way into the Liberals, or so it seemed to me.

So what is Clegg’s game?


Even if he truly believes that the Tories’ economic and social policies will, in the long term, improve Britain from a Liberal point of view, and that in five years’ time we will all be thanking the Coalition for delivering us from evil, does he seriously think that this will reflect favourably upon the Liberals?

Here is a man who promised to fight to keep student fees in England at no more than £3,000 pa and who said that to double them to £6,000 would be a disaster, but who oversaw the tripling of fees within 6 months of being elected, to £9,000.

Here is a man who, as the picture showed, berated the Conservatives, whom he suspected of plotting to increase VAT, overseeing the increase in VAT within 7 months of taking office.

Here is a man who said that on voting reform described the AV system proposed by the Gordon Brown as ''a baby step in the right direction'', and said he would not settle for ''a miserable little compromise”, accepting that miserable little compromise when it is offered by the Tories, along with the title of Deputy Prime Minister. What happened, Mr Clegg, to the assertion that the very least the Liberal Democrats would settle for was the Jenkins’ Commission’s AV+ proposals?

And now what is happening with the scrapping of control orders which was a plank of Liberal policy. It seems that Nick has to back down in the face of opposition from lightweight Theresa Wellingtons.

So remind me Nick, what was it that you were insisting on? And how do you think it will feel to be the man who reduced the Liberal numbers in the next Commons to around the same level as Jeremy Thorpe had?

A GOVERNMENT OF ALL THE TALENTS?

Well the Cabinet is sorted now with a mix of Libs and Cons, left and right, thin and fat, male and female......!

I’ve listed the most important of them below together with a few comments:

William Hague: Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Was the leader between 1997-2002. It’s suggested he’s in the wrong job as he is so pro-America and anti-Europe. His mind would be better suited to the Treasury.

George Osborne: Treasury. Youngest Chancellor for 124 years. With all that is to come is he up to the battering he will get on the Today programme?

Theresa May: Home Office (Largely English only role). Most famous for being unspectacular at every brief she held and wearing weird shoes, she appears to be the token woman in a top position, but it’s one I doubt she’ll hold for long.

Ken Clarke: Justice/Lord Chancellor. (Largely English role). Can’t wait to see the Hush Puppies walking backwards after delivering the speech to Her Majesty. Ken’s pretty competent at everything he turns his hand to.

Ian Duncan-Smith: Work and Pensions. Big job for IDS with unemployment rising badly and no jobs on the horizon. They have promised to put people back to work, but there is none... worth a separate post soon.

Michael Gove: English Education. Close friend of Cameron. Will have to sell new schools run by parents.

Vince Cable: Business. Uncertainties over brief, and how it clashes with Treasury. Will have to do something about splitting up the big banks and getting some money back off them.

Liam Fox: Defence. No experience in service. Very dubious record on expenses and on his dealings with declaring interest. Not a nice man. Not to be trusted.

Andrew Lansley: English Health . Will have to find billions of efficiency savings which as we know always translate into deaths.

Francis Maude: Cabinet Office Minister. No idea what they do. He can come and polish our cabinets if he likes.

Thomas Galloway Dunlop du Roy de Blicquy Galbraith: Leader of the Lords. Best known for his parties with baths full of pink champagne on ice. Great. Deal is that he’ll be involved in abolishing himself. I hope he’s good at it.

Chris Hulme: English Energy. Westminster School, Oxford and the Sorbonne. Very clever guy who will have to try to keep the Tories Green.

Jeremy Hunt: English Culture. Will have to shave money off London’s Olympics.

Eric Pickles: English Communities. Says he’s at war with town hall fat cats. Good luck to him.

Andrew Mitchell: International Development. Friend of Ashcroft. Will have to rebalance the development budget from rich to poor countries.

Philip Hammond: English Transport. Going to have great cuts to worry about, including Crossrail, so look out for fireworks with the blond haystack.

Danny Alexander: Scotland. Easy job, not much to it, and he only has Spud Murphy to follow. On the other hand he has to try to stay on the right side of Alex Salmond.

Cheryl Gillan: Wales. Will have to commit to full devolution for Wales. Don’t you think the very existence of these two roles show that Scotland and Wales are unequal partners in this union? There isn’t an England Secretary which suggests that the whole thing is about England.....

Owen Paterson: NI. God help him.

Caroline Spellman: English Environment. Anne Widdecombe’s voice without her brains, and she pays her nanny out of parliamentary expenses and ends up as a Cabinet Minister. Why?

Patrick McLouchin: Chief Conservative Whip. Will have to keep the peace in the coalition. Hah!

Baroness Warsi: No portfolio. Token Muslim and female one at that, with a voice like a corncrake.

Overall, some totally uninspiring people, and a few good ones. One thing I was pleased to see is that the main ministers are from the Commons, unlike the last Cabinet.

Tories employ damage limitation to get pink vote.

The Guardian reports that David Cameron will sent Nick Herbert (shadow environment secretary) to Poland to attend a gay rights march in Warsaw in July. Nick is David’s most senior gay member of his frontbench team

The move is yet another cynical ploy intended to defuse criticism in tonight's leaders' television debate that the Tories have allied themselves with extremists with homophobic views in the EU. Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown are expected to use the second TV debate to embarrass the Tories by highlighting their links with hard-right groups in the European parliament. These include the Czech ODS party, whose founder, Vaclav Klaus, has questioned global warming, and Roberts Zile, of Latvia's Fatherland and Freedom party, some of whose members attend a ceremony to commemorate members of the Latvian legion of the Waffen-SS. And the highly conservative Law and Justice party of Poland founded by the late President Lech Kaczynski, who died earlier this month in a plane crash in western Russia. Kaczynski banned gay rights marches in Warsaw when he was the city's mayor.

David Miliband, today accuses Cameron of adopting an "isolated and weak" position on Europe after abandoning the main centre-right grouping in Strasbourg to sit in the new European Conservatives and Reformists group. We all remember them and DC's hopeless interview with the Gay Times where he thought he need not bother to even attempt a justification of this. Where his performance was so bad he asked to stop the cameras at one point so he could compose an answer. No insult to gay people there then.

Cameron claims the Tories have responded to these concerns by asking Herbert to travel to Poland. He said: "We would not join with parties that had unacceptable views. But we do recognise that, particularly in central and eastern Europe, there are parties that have still got some way to go on the journey of recognising full rights for gay people. We are helping them make that journey." Really, have you told Chris Grayling about that yet Dave? He’s not terribly keen on gay people being treated like normal is he as he is on record as saying that guest house owners should be able to discriminate on this sort of basis. Why not send Chris to Poland Dave he would go down much better with you so called allies.

Cameron added that Labour and the Lib Dems were in no position to lecture the Tories about their new group. "I would say there are partners of the Liberal Democrats who refer to homosexuality as a plague. How many times have you read that in the Guardian? There are partners of Labour that were collaborators with the communist regime in Poland that locked people up and was responsible for appalling human rights abuses. That is a bit disingenuous to say the least coming from the party that brought us Section 28. Whatever you can say about Labour they have done more that anyone to equalise rights for gay people. Indeed Nick himself would know all about that as he was able to utilise laws brought in by Labour to enter into a civil partnership with his partner of 10 years in January 2009.

Dave went on "Our point is that it is good to have a new group that is against a federal Europe, that wants free trade, co-operation and progress in Europe. And yes, some countries, particularly some of the Catholic countries, do have very conservative social views. They are on a journey in respect of that and it is a journey we can help them with." I see then so that’s ok, they can be as homophobic and extremist as they like as long as they are against a federal Europe. Why didn’t you tell the Gay Times that Dave when you wanted to get gay people to vote for you?

But Miliband will warn that Cameron's stance on Europe shows he is incapable of leading change. "Since they have failed to change themselves they have little hope of changing the country, or reforming Europe," he will say in a speech in Bristol. "The Tories are frightened of Europe which makes them isolated and therefore weak in Europe. They want to retreat and defend, not engage and lead. They have outlined a policy plan based on isolation, confrontation and weakness." I must admit that Miliband has a point here. Thanks to the disastrous attempts by the New Tories to woo the pink vote this seems to be a yawning open goal.

I frankly don’t see how sending the token gay in the shadow cabinet (possibly the cabinet by July) will in any way change these peoples mindset. Nor do I see how this will be seen as anything except what it is, damage limitation.

Fun and frolics with the Tories

Dear Munguin,

If you've ever had your heart set on an official Conservative Party mug, an 'It's time for a Change' baby-grow, or even a 'Honk for Change' car sticker, then I've got some good news for you.

Because today the online Conservative Shop has officially opened up for business.

There's a great range of products to choose from, including old favourite like diaries, umbrellas and ties, fun stocking-fillers like fridge magnets and posters, and stylish T-shirts and sweatshirts.

You can also buy the two winners of our recent T-shirt competition: 'Don't blame me I voted Tory' and 'Release your inner Tory'.

All proceeds go to the Party, so as well as getting yourself some great Conservative-branded goodies, you'll also be helping our campaign to win the next election.

And if you're one of the first 100 customers, you'll get a free set of limited edition 'Make your own Gordon Brown speech' fridge magnets, the must-have item from this year's Party Conference.

So head down to the Conservative Shop now and start Shopping for Change.

Yours, Eric Pickles MP

P.S. Lots of you have asked for our Ready for Change video from Conference. You'll be pleased to know that it's now on YouTube.

Thanks very much for this e-mail Eric, at least I will know where to go for those much needed stocking fillers this year.